In recent times, I got two translation proposals from two different Indian outsourcers who wanted my service for Bangladeshi Bengali. One is the work of World Bank and the target audience of the translation is small and medium entrepreneurs of rural and semi-urban areas of Bangladesh.

Another work is of Nokia mobile phone manual, particularly intended for Bangladeshi market.

With due respect to the Indian outsourcers, I wonder why organisations like WB or companies like Nokia gave contracts to Indians for Bangladeshi Bengali? Is there any shortage of qualified Bangladeshi Bengali linguists? Ironically, the Indian agencies outsource the work to Bangladeshi Bengali translators and often offer very poor rate that is really irritating. Worst is that sometimes these Indian agencies get the work translated by Indian Bengali translators and then try to pass them to Bangladeshi translators like us to edit/re-translate or localise from Indian Bengali to Bangladeshi Bengali, which is another horrible task.

In our city also, I see many international banks like HSBC publish their product brochures both in English and Bengali. But you cannot resist your anger seeing the quality of Bengali translation. Sometimes I feel that I should inform the international authorities of the bank about the quality, which must have a negative impact about their service and often creates ambiguity. But I am not sure whether it is justified and morally right.

I am NOT blaming the Indians why they get the contract from Nokia or similar organisations but question the judgement of the organisations like Nokia, Moneygarm, WB and similar organisations. If they know that their target audience live in Bangladesh and Bangladeshi Bengali is distinct from Indian Bengali in many respects, then why they do not try someone from Bangladesh directly?

Ok I admit it is the failure of Bangladeshi translators that they cannot communicate to international companies and market their service.

Being extremely annoyed by the rate the Indians offer, sometimes I feel that I write to the companies do business in Bangladesh. But I am confused whether it will be wise to write them and whether they will respond and whom to write and how to write.

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With due respect to the Indian outsourcers, I wonder why organisations like WB or companies like Nokia gave contracts to Indians for Bangladeshi Bengali? Is there any shortage of qualified Bangladeshi Bengali linguists?

It seems that companies tend to assign translation jobs to translation agencies rather than to freelancers directly. In the Blue Board I found only one Bangladeshi outsourcer, while there are 175 outsourcers found in India.

Being extremely annoyed by the rate the Indians offer, sometimes I feel that I write to the companies do business in Bangladesh. But I am confused whether it will be wise to write them and whether they will respond and whom to write and how to write.

I think it is a good idea to offer your translation services directly to the companies. Try to find out their contact details on the Internet and send your proposal regardless they will respond or not.

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With due respect to the Indian outsourcers, I wonder why organisations like WB or companies like Nokia gave contracts to Indians for Bangladeshi Bengali?

I don't know about these languages, but large corporations very often (usually?) sign translation/localisation contracts with large translation agencies on a corporate level.

To follow your example, Nokia has a global contract with a big name in the translation industry that covers 30+ languages for things like user guides, web site content, and a lot more. (Not all, by the way.)

So, to simplify things a bit, when Nokia needs the user guide for a new phone model translated, they provide their translation supplier's central office with all necessary materials, and then the central office pipes it down to all regional/local offices (including Poland in my case) for translation.

I don't think big names like Nokia are likely to decide to work with an individual translator for a selected language. This would mean disrupting the whole structure of partnering with a global translation supplier, and losing the time and cost savings this partnership generates.

You may try your luck, though.

Another idea is to contact the local offices of some international companies, as they may have their local translation needs quite independent of the global level.

Regards,

Maciek

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Lubain Masum wrote: I am NOT blaming the Indians why they get the contract from Nokia or similar organisations but question the judgement of the organisations like Nokia, Moneygarm, WB and similar organisations. If they know that their target audience live in Bangladesh and Bangladeshi Bengali is distinct from Indian Bengali in many respects, then why they do not try someone from Bangladesh directly?

It is interesting to know that Nokia and Moneygram are now the authorities who could decide the fate of Bengali. In another forum topic you claimed that the issue as to whether Sylheti is distinct from "Standard Bengali" is a matter of scholastic debate. Do you think that the distinctive features you allude to above, if any, and whether they are sufficient to add new nomenclature in the domain of linguistics by way of "Bangladeshi Bengali" and "Indian Bengali", are also a matter of "scholastic debate" that would barely affect the reader's comprehension of these languages?

It seems to me that this is a dangerous trend that would have no end. This is similar to every conceivable tribe claiming their own "native land". Perhaps we should consign this issue to 'scholastic debate" for I can't see how it affects commercial translation which is the only concern of the members here.

Perhaps the day is not far when someone would ask me if I understand when I read a newspaper or a website that originated in Bangladesh? It makes me smile how in this modern age, we don't even have to know the rudiments of a language to comment on it as virtually everyone seems to have an opinion about Sylheti and Bengali! If my mother is originally from Barisal, shall I tell her to disown and forget her village simply because it is a different country now?

This is sad. It is so easy to divide and so difficult to unite. I fail to understand why. I wonder if the same is happening with other languages, Urdu, for example?

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I sincerely thank (although a bit late) Hipyan Nopri and Maciek for their valuable suggestions that will help me shape my future communication with translation agencies and other global companies if there comes any chance.

I thank Anne Patteet for reinforcement.

priya suvasree

apnakeo amar dhonnobad (thanks) for your thoughtful comment but I feel most of your comments is more relevant with 'Give Sylheti its due' posting and I probably focus on this issue later under that posting.

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